Self driving car kills pedestrian.

[RickH]

Now if only they took all human controlled cars off the roads each time one of them had an incident of this sort...

[reohn2]

Now if only they took all human controlled cars off the roads each time one of them had an incident of this sort...

There'd be more space for cycling

[Stevek76]

And and and... we have been given no information of the broader circumstances other than the poor lady was not on the sidewalk and was walking with her bike, it infers she was in the roadway. She may have simply walked out in front of the car for some odd reason which means it is probably irrelavent whether or not it was an autonomous car or being driven/minded by a human.

She was apparently in the central reservation:

https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/ar ... 765481.php

And I'm not sure it makes it irrelevant, this is actually the kind of limited situation in which a good human driver should do better than an AV. If I'm in those situations (hazard at the side of lane I am in that I'm not convinced has noticed me - I don't buy the it was dark rubbish from the police chief, sounds like car centric excuses to me, the headlights on Volvos are not exactly subtle ) I preemptively seek to build a safety margin. Here that would have likely been move out a lane so if they do decide to cross I have time to do something about it. If that's not possible then I'd slow (certainly not keep doing 38 in a 35!) move as much to the right as I can and keep an eye for signs of daft actions, for the metres passing the hazard I'd be covering the brake as well.

As for the driverless tech it's surprising that car made no attempt to slow at all given the impact was on the front. I can see that perhaps the sensors were unable to pick her out amongst clutter on the reservation but she was clearly in the road at the point of collision and one of the advantages of a driverless vehicle is it should have near instantaneous reaction times. As someone pushing a bike loaded with shopping it seems unlikely that she jumped out at a rapid pace...

Also, unless the photos have been flipped the impact is on the right front of the vehicle which if she was indeed walking from the central meridian means she made it across the entire front of the vehicle before it got to and hit her. If that is the case then it's pretty unacceptable that the minder didn't see her (likely not actually paying any attention - one of the reasons that while I'm reasonably keen on fully automated vehicles I really don't like the semi autonomous efforts that are just going to lull drivers into a false sense of security) and clear that uber/Volvos tech still needs much work and better hse policies regarding their minders.

[fastpedaller]

There's only one way to avoid the situation of 'risk compensation' that these technologies are prone to........ Introduce the tech, but don't tell the user it's there! The only thing is that if the vehicle 'rescues' the situation we'll have to brain-wash the driver so they have no knowledge of the tech being able to save the situation

[Vorpal]

The incident happened within perhaps 100 yards of a crosswalk, Moir said. “It is dangerous to cross roadways in the evening hour when well-illuminated, managed crosswalks are available,” she said.

says it all.

[landsurfer]

My worry is not the robot car but the 500K + redundant HGV drivers roaming the country, angry and unemployed, after robot HGV's hit the motorways.
Robotic cars are a smokescreen... the real push is into heavy goods vehicles.

How do i know ...... ?

Well ... we are working with this company in Brentford .....

Amazing how many DIRFT copies are suddenly appearing along the motorway networks ....
Flawless planning permission ..........
(and yes ... the majority of the traffic is not rail !)

There may be trouble ahead !!!!!!

(Strange but true .. Ingram have a "factory" at DIRFT ....https://www.militaryfactory.com/smallar ... arms_id=86 .. "All that glisters is not Glod" ... as Sir Terry P might have said )

[Stevek76]

Didn't think that was a particular secret? Not is it that AI is coming for jobs generally.

Though I thought hgv drivers were more like 300-350k and initially driverless tech will take the motorway part of it out, you'll still need regular humans to get it the rest of the way.

Given that most hgv drivers aren't exactly young and that there's been concerns about a shortage occasionally in recent times, angry redundant drivers roaming the country might be a little ott.

[Pete Owens]

My worry is not the robot car but the 500K + redundant HGV drivers roaming the country, angry and unemployed, after robot HGV's hit the motorways.
Robotic cars are a smokescreen... the real push is into heavy goods vehicles.

The Luddites had similar concerns for for the employment prospects of hand loom weavers during the industrial revolution.

[landsurfer]

Didn't think that was a particular secret? Not is it that AI is coming for jobs generally.

Though I thought hgv drivers were more like 300-350k and initially driverless tech will take the motorway part of it out, you'll still need regular humans to get it the rest of the way.

Given that most hgv drivers aren't exactly young and that there's been concerns about a shortage occasionally in recent times, angry redundant drivers roaming the country might be a little ott.

"you'll still need regular humans to get it the rest of the way." Why ....?

"Given that most hgv drivers aren't exactly young", .. Discuss .... The young lady that drives her HGV into our business every day to pick up is in her mid to late 20's.

"I thought HGV drivers were more like 300-350k" ... 300,000 or 500,000 ..... Still 3 or 5 times the Armed Forces and Police Forces combined (Sorry Police Services ) .. ???

The time for the Scandinavian "Universal Benefits" model is getting closer ... thank God ... bring it on ....

[kwackers]

Robots and AI will affect lots and lots of jobs. Worrying about truck drivers is almost irrelevant in the general scale of things.
It can't be stopped because a lot of the tech can actually simply be downloaded and used right now.
The next 2 or 3 decades are going to be very interesting if for no other reason than the majority of jobs lost will be white collar and white collar people tend to vote...

[atlas_shrugged]

This lady was not a pedestrian - at least as far as the autonomous vehicle was concerned. There was a picture of a cycle with badly bent wheel and bags near to the Uber car.

AVs have cameras, radar, and lidar to recognise what is on the road: pedestrians, cars, cyclists, ducks, wheelchairs etc etc.

Where AVs can get into trouble is when these combine in a never seen before scenario. Example (I think with a Google car):
LIDAR sees small strange wheeled vehicle following some very small blobs all over the road ...
What this actually was: a lady in a wheelchair chasing some ducks.

Result: Google car applies brakes - and squeals I do not know what this is.

Could a lady pushing a bike with bags mean the software could not identify what this was? Does the software apply an automatic brake every time it does not recognise something - or does it keep on going in the hope this is not dangerous?

One thing we can be certain of is that like the Aniston case (the track rider case which did not happen in Cambridge) is that the Cambridge news will have a weekly article about: "Should we have a dangerous Autonomous Driving Law". Won't we!

[AlaninWales]

This lady was not a pedestrian - at least as far as the autonomous vehicle was concerned. There was a picture of a cycle with badly bent wheel and bags near to the Uber car.

AVs have cameras, radar, and lidar to recognise what is on the road: pedestrians, cars, cyclists, ducks, wheelchairs etc etc.

Where AVs can get into trouble is when these combine in a never seen before scenario. Example (I think with a Google car):
LIDAR sees small strange wheeled vehicle following some very small blobs all over the road ...
What this actually was: a lady in a wheelchair chasing some ducks.

Result: Google car applies brakes - and squeals I do not know what this is.

Could a lady pushing a bike with bags mean the software could not identify what this was? Does the software apply an automatic brake every time it does not recognise something - or does it keep on going in the hope this is not dangerous?

One thing we can be certain of is that like the Aniston case (the track rider case which did not happen in Cambridge) is that the Cambridge news will have a weekly article about: "Should we have a dangerous Autonomous Driving Law". Won't we!

Background information about where Uber is with respect to other autonomous car developers: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2164297-self-driving-uber-death-should-halt-techs-race-to-the-bottom/
The paragraph I found particularly interesting was:

Nevada was the first US state to authorise experimental autonomous vehicles on public roads, in 2011. Vehicles were treated like human learners, even undergoing a driving test with an examiner in the passenger seat. California followed shortly after, requiring companies to employ highly trained safety drivers, file reports detailing each bump and scrape, and note every time a vehicle’s systems failed.

States coming later to the game enticed companies with fewer regulations. In 2015, Arizona’s governor Doug Ducey issued an executive order opening the state’s road to autonomous vehicles with few licensing requirements and no California-style reporting necessary. The tactic worked. After Uber’s self-driving cars had their licences revoked in California for not complying with its regulatory regime, they fled across the border to Arizona.

My bold emphasis.

[Bonefishblues]

I think there's every reason to be concerned about Uber's culture and its effects. OTOH they have hired a really good Global HR Director to get to grip with it, so watch this space.

[Stevek76]

"you'll still need regular humans to get it the rest of the way." Why ....?

Well we're not going to go from fully manual to fully automatic just like that. The first and easiest thing to crack will be motorway driving. This alone may shed some jobs, or stop further recruitment, as regional distribution trips can drive themselves and motorway segments of mixed trips can be done on the autopilot reducing the need for breaks. Goods ultimately still need to get to or from shops, factories and homes in urban areas and this bit will still need human drivers for a while yet.

And even once the tech reaches production it's not going to be an instant transition it will be expensive to start with and not all operators will invest right away.

"Given that most hgv drivers aren't exactly young", .. Discuss .... The young lady that drives her HGV into our business every day to pick up is in her mid to late 20's.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-30496851. Some ages there.

"I thought HGV drivers were more like 300-350k" ... 300,000 or 500,000 ..... Still 3 or 5 times the Armed Forces and Police Forces combined (Sorry Police Services ) .. ???

Yes but either way, a small proportion of the total jobs at risk from AI. Even with driving, once hgvs in more urban areas is solved, cars will have been done a little before and at that point taxi firms are going to stay moving over. And buses. Let alone the hundreds of thousands of administrative level jobs in offices.

The time for the Scandinavian "Universal Benefits" model is getting closer ... thank God ... bring it on ....

Indeed.

[Stevek76]

Result: Google car applies brakes - and squeals I do not know what this is.

Could a lady pushing a bike with bags mean the software could not identify what this was? Does the software apply an automatic brake every time it does not recognise something - or does it keep on going in the hope this is not dangerous?

That is why I was fairly unsurprised it was uber, they've already shown a distinct lack of care regarding this, so that they'd pick the "**** it, drive on" option is not exactly much of an extra step.